The Week

 

News

Daniel Leaves Berkeley to Join Emeryville Manager in Oakland Administration

Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Tuesday June 02, 2015 - 10:23:00 PM

Berkeley City Manager Christine Daniel is leaving her post to become an assistant city administrator in Oakland, officials in both cities said today.

Daniel, who has lived in Oakland for 25 years, has been Berkeley's city manager since November 2011 but she will start her new job in Oakland on Aug. 10, according to both cities.

Daniel's appointment in Oakland was announced by Sabrina Landreth, who currently is Emeryville's city manager but will take the top job in Oakland on July 1. -more-


Flash: Christine Daniel Resigns as Berkeley City Manager

Tuesday June 02, 2015 - 06:57:00 PM

Berkeley City Manager Christine Daniel today announced that she is resigning to take a job as an assistant city manager in Oakland. -more-


Mentally ill man committed for 33 years to life for killing Berkeley man

Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:36:00 PM

A 26-year-old man who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia was committed today to 33 years to life at a state mental hospital for murdering a homeowner in the Berkeley hills three years ago. -more-


Archbishop Robert S. Morse
1924-2105

Barnaby Conrad III
Tuesday June 02, 2015 - 07:37:00 PM

Robert Sherwood Morse, the retired Archbishop of the Anglican Province of Christ The King, died peacefully, at age 91, on Thursday, May 28, at 2:25 a.m. in his house in Berkeley. His wife, Nancy Morse, and their daughter, Nina Gladish, were at his bedside. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Bates: Berkeley must incentivize office tower downtown

Becky O'Malley
Friday May 29, 2015 - 02:23:00 PM

Say what? Did Mayor Tom Bates really say that the purpose of the zoning code requirement for asking “significant community benefits” from the seven allowable extra-tall buildings in Berkeley’s downtown was to “incentivize” [his word, not mine] building some office towers here? -more-


The Editor's Back Fence

New: Don't Miss This: the Mission Moratorium explained

Saturday May 30, 2015 - 09:57:00 AM

Click here to see the video which cleverly explains the Mission Moratorium on luxury housing., -more-


Public Comment

Press Release: ASUC External Affairs Vice President Marium Navid Calls on City Council to Ensure Significant Community Developments from Downtown Developments Over 75 Feet

From Associated Students of the University of California eavp@asuc.org
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:55:00 PM

On Tuesday, the Berkeley City Council heard public comment on Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli’s proposal for establishing a community benefits system for five buildings taller than 75 feet located downtown. Vice President Navid, along with her chief-of-staff, Zahra Abadin, spoke against the Bates-Capitelli proposal due to its failure to deliver the “significant community benefits” promised to the residents of Berkeley in the 2012 Downtown Berkeley Plan. -more-


Memorial Day

Jagjit Singh
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:26:00 PM

As yet another Memorial Day another fades away from our consciousness, we should demand far more accountability from our policy makers who send our young men and women to ill-defined battles waged in our name. -more-


Impact Fees and Community Benefits: An Open Letter to the Berkeley City Council

Catherine Orozco
Friday May 29, 2015 - 03:28:00 PM

I have been following the debate over significant public benefits as required by for properties over 6 stories in the downtown. Developers are already required by Municipal Code Chapter 22, section 20 to mitigate any negative impacts caused by their development. Thus, significant community benefits must be items that benefit the general public after all the negative impacts have been mitigated. -more-


Parking Meter Hour Extension: an open letter to Mayor Bates and Councilmembers, Transportation Commissioners, and Staff

Michael Katz
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:09:00 PM

As your constituent, I urge you to reject the idea of extending Berkeley parking-meter hours beyond 6 pm. On balance, I believe you will find this proposal extremely unpopular, divisive, and counterproductive. -more-


Laura's Law is needed

Lindsay Aikman
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:40:00 PM

I spent yesterday morning in an Oakland courtroom waiting for my 37-year old mentally ill son to appear before a judge for fighting with Berkeley police. He spent four nights in jail and was still in custody with bail set at over $10,000. -more-


ISIS

Jagjit Singh
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:07:00 PM

Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s criticism of Iraqi forces not having “the will to fight’ closely reflects our own reluctance to send ground forces to the region. The birth of ISIS followed the dismissal of tens of thousands of disgruntled Ba’athist soldiers and police officers by Paul Bremer following the US invasion in 2003. We ensconced our own puppet - the thoroughly corrupt and incompetent Shiite, Nouri Maliki as prime minister who waged a pogrom against the Sunnis and voila - ISIS surged in strength and numbers beckoning radical Sunnis from around the world. -more-


Fund affordable living with a windfall tax on start-ups (Response to Stephen Barton)

Lance Montauk
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:02:00 PM

People living in cities around the Bay Area desperately need money to pay for all of the increasingly expensive aspects of living which they encounter, but thank goodness there is a potential source of funding right here in front of us. Huge cash windfalls from initial stock offerings, billions in obscene venture capitalist profits, and the humongous bonuses paid to all the high-tech individuals who are turning our cozy communities into gentrified ghettos, are all large pools of money begging for taxation. This is a lot of money, which can be tapped to help the rest of us ordinary people - we waiters, waitresses, hamburger-flippers, teachers, nurses, gardeners, bums, handicapped, doctors, elderly, lawyers, and accountants - to get off the treadmill. With this Mother Lode we can build or buy a society owned or run by non-profits, trusts, limitless-equity cooperatives, or better still, the government itself. This California Gold Rush need not repeat the errors of 1849. -more-


Lane splitting should remain illegal: an open letter to the California State Senate

Paul M. Schwartz, attorney at law
Friday May 29, 2015 - 03:30:00 PM

Lane splitting is currently and thankfully illegal in the State of California. A bill recently passed the state Assembly to legalize this annoying and dangerous activity. Please don't vote for this legislation. Lane splitting is incredibly dangerous and endangers the lives of bikers and others. -more-


George Stephanopoulos

Tejinder Uberoi
Friday May 29, 2015 - 03:26:00 PM

George Stephanopoulos, ABC News' top anchor, has been rightly held to account for his hitherto close ties and undisclosed $75,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation. He was not only a passive donor but a vigorous advocate for the Clinton Foundation. -more-


Columns

THE PUBLIC EYE: Iraq: Five Points to Remember

Bob Burnett
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:00:00 PM

As the Republican presidential demolition derby continues, the 2015 GOP candidates have settled on two central themes: hatred for President Obama and desire to send US troops back to Iraq to fight ISIS. While Republicans suffer from short-term memory loss, there’s no reason the rest of us should forget what actually happened in Iraq (and why sending troops back there is a terrible idea). -more-


Oakland's response to demonstrations and the danger of a public and private backlash

Ralph E. Stone
Friday May 29, 2015 - 03:32:00 PM

On Friday night, May 1st, to Saturday morning, May 2nd, labor supporters and protestors against police violence nationally, roamed Oakland’s downtown breaking glass fronts of banks and a few other businesses, and systematically smashing the windshields of rows of vehicles at one car lot. Unfortunately, the media focus and Oakland’s response was on the damage caused by the protestors rather than their message. -more-


ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Tardive Dyskinesia

Jack Bragen
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:14:00 PM

When serious medication side effects are merely hypothetical, it makes it easy to be an advocate for medication "compliance." After all, psychiatric disorders are real diseases that need real treatment--if we are to be well. The medications available are a better choice than trying to tough it out, go without medication, and end up with a very bad outcome, such as repeat hospitalizations, incarceration due to behavior caused by psychosis, and a deterioration in basic functioning. -more-


Arts & Events

Film Review: Aloft: This Chilling Story Might Leave You Up in the Air

Gar Smith
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:19:00 PM

Opens May 29 at the Landmark Shattuck

After sitting through Claudia Llosa's snow-crossed saga of family alienation in a land of perpetual chill, poverty, and buried emotions, I found myself thinking a better title for the film might have been Adrift.

While the cinematography is gorgeous and the acting is forthright and deeply felt (with compelling performances by Jennifer Connelly, Cillian Murphy, and the young Zen McGrath), the story is sometimes as hard to follow as footprints in a snow bank on windy day.

-more-


Around & About--Dance: Isadora Duncan Birthday Celebratory Performance

Ken Bullock
Friday May 29, 2015 - 04:33:00 PM

For years, Mary Sano--an exquisite dancer and choreographer--has been teaching and performing Isadora Duncan's style of dance in Mary's studio on 5th Street in San Francisco, not far from where Isadora was born on May 27th, 138 years ago. -more-


International Theater & Music in the Bay Area: Part One, The San Francisco International Arts Festival

Ken Bullock
Friday May 29, 2015 - 03:36:00 PM

There's been a great profusion of international theater and related music events springing up all over the Bay Area the past few weeks, some of it by touring groups, some by residential companies--and the biggest producer for them, the San Francisco International Arts Festival, which presents moire than 70 ensembles and individual performers over three weeks, has shows continuing through this weekend and next, until Sunday, June 7th, at Fort Mason, including performers from Berkeley as well as from all over the world. -more-


New: Berkeley’s Chora Nova Presents Handel’s ACIA AND GALATEA

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Saturday May 30, 2015 - 10:16:00 AM

Coming just four months after the American Bach Soloists performed a concert version of Handel’s short opera Acis and Galatea at venues throughout the Bay Area in late January, Chora Nova, a choral group founded in 2006 by Paul Flight, offered a concert version of Acis and Galatea in a single performance, Saturday evening May 23 at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. Handel’s Acis and Galatea, a brief two-act opera, (or, as it was originally called, a masque), is a charming example of George Friedrich Handel’s musical artistry. First performed in 1718 at Cannons, the country mansion of James Bridges, Earl of Carnarvon, Acis and Galatea is set to a libretto fashioned by eminent poets such as John Gay, Alexander Pope and John Hughes, who took the basic plot from a story in Book XIII of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. -more-